Good news, everybody! Hada Messia, for CNN: Pope Francis has laid down a law making it a crime to abuse children sexually or physically on Vatican grounds, the Holy See announced Thursday. The acts were already crimes under church law, but are now specifically outlawed within the Vatican city-state, which is home to hundreds of… READ THE REST
[golf clap]
…No actually, make it one of those loud, slow claps, the really sarcastic kind.
Good.
On.
Ya.
Way.
To.
Fuck-
en
Go.
I await further radically progressive moral innovation from the Catholic Church with bated breath.
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The Vatican is so small, and so specialized, I wonder if there are any actual children there? This could be one of those things like Oklahoma banning Shariah law.
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Pathetic.
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So it used to be OK to abuse children sexually and physically on Vatican grounds, but now it’s not? Now I am understand some things…
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Definitely a slow clap moment.
It’s probably not quite as bad as it sounds because the place is a theocracy meaning the pope is basically the dictator of the vatican, right? So he can presumably go ahead and punish anyone there for whatever he wants anyway.
The robust legal framework of a real country probably isn’t quite as necessary.
Edit:
Or maybe it is, wikipedia makes it sound a lot more complicated.
Eh, various articles also say that really this is just making it a lot more specific, and there were general provisions under which child abuse would be illegal in the previous set of laws.
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Yeah. Slooooooow clap. Rolling eyes. Welcome to the Club of Decency, Vatican! You have earned your first merit badge: Sexual Abuse of Children is WRONG. The next badge in the Do Not Exploit Children series is Report Child Sexual Abuse to Law Enforcement. You can also work towards the matching merit badge, Forbid Suspected Sex Abusers from Running Youth Programs. Good luck!
This should have been in the law already, whether other laws may encompass such a crime or not.
There might not be any kids living within the Vatican borders, but kids are definitely on the grounds a lot. Gotta get those altar boys somewhere.
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Well I guess I have to scratch that off my bucket list.
Altar boys?
I wouldn’t know, I’m not an Archbishop.
And criminalized leaks. So we won’t know about all the cases they aren’t prosecuting.
The new Vatican law criminalizing the leaking Vatican secrets is worrisome. If somebody has verifiable evidence including live videos of the cardinals in an orgy in the Sistine Chapel with hot and cold running choir boys it would be illegal to let anybody know about it if somebody in the Vatican hierarchy (perhaps some cardinals?) had reason to want it kept secret. When an organization has rules against truth there are deep underlying problems that will never be resolved.
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And the people of Rome hear one collective, loud, disappointed sigh emanating from the Northwest side of the city…
Nope. It’s been illegal under church law now it’s also illegal under civil law.
I would expect most of them to be visiting tourists.
One of those ‘should have been done 1000 years ago’ things. Better to have done it than not, but they have along way to go to rebuild anything on that front.
All that said - anachronistic, archaic absurdity of an institution. I respect people’s faith, but the 2000 year old church is another thing, and utterly weird once you scratch the surface. Many of my relatives are devout Catholics, and I love them - but have a hard time reconciling their obvious faith with the octegenarians in funny hats playing power games in ancient palaces thousands of miles away.
As I understand it, it was already against the law, but this adds additional penalties for doing it inside Vatican City.
He also made leaks illegal, so letting people know when they cover it up is also a crime.
Canon:
Gee, such a modernist Pope. He is really pushing the envelope on change.
